Only four million left
Trump is plundering his own campaign coffers
8/3/2023 4:24 p.m
The US Congress accuses ex-US President Trump of ripping off his supporters. This raised $54 million that year, notably for his candidacy in the upcoming presidential elections. Trump prefers to spend the money on his lawyers.
A court hearing has been scheduled for Thursday against ex-US President Donald Trump. The trial for attempted conspiracy to nullify the results of the 2020 presidential election isn’t the only trouble Trump has with the judiciary. He is charged with a total of 78 criminal offenses in three separate investigations. The millions he needs for his numerous court cases are now noticeably lacking in his election campaign financing.
His supporters of the Save America Action Committee (PAC) announced this week that they had just $4 million left in the campaign treasury at the end of June. The committee has already spent $21.6 million on Trump’s attorneys this year. And four million dollars won’t get you very far in the US election campaign.
Overall, Trump’s supporters raised about $54 million for his campaign in the first half of 2023 – more than any of his rivals for the next Republican presidential nomination. However, critics point out that Trump’s escalating processes cost money that is then lacking for television advertising and campaign events.
Trump’s fortune estimated at $2.5 billion
Until November 2022, when Trump announced his renewed candidacy for the presidency, the Republican National Committee had largely covered his legal fees. Since then, however, they have relinquished campaign donations. It’s not against the law for Trump to spend campaign funds on lawyers. However, it is increasingly being questioned whether campaign donors can be expected to bear the costs of his criminal proceedings.
“When you give Trump money, it almost entirely goes towards his personal legal fees,” says lawyer and conservative political writer AG Hamilton. “It means that [die Republikaner] will have virtually nothing left to compete with Democrats in key states.” And the recent indictment of Trump over his tampering with the 2020 election result means further spending for his Save America Action Committee as he faces separate indictments in Florida , New York and Washington threaten.
Actually, the former reality TV star Trump would have enough money to pay the legal fees himself. The media company “Forbes” estimates its assets at 2.5 billion dollars (around 2.3 billion euros). Trump’s hearing scheduled for Thursday is about the storming of the Capitol in January 2021. Prosecutors could indict the ex-president in a separate case because of similar allegations in the state of Georgia. In March next year, Trump will appear in court in New York, accused of covering up hush money payments to a porn actress. Two months later, he is to be tried in Florida for violating national security secrets.
Competitor DeSantis senses an opportunity
Trump founded the PAC after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden. In two months, he raised $250 million to set up an “election defense fund” to contest the outcome. However, the money was not spent on recounting ballot papers or on other measures to contest the election. Most was split between the Republican National Committee and Trump’s campaign fund.
A US Congressional committee examining Trump’s election-related misconduct concluded: “President Trump and his campaign ripped off supporters by raising more than $250 million and pretending to be fighting a fraud , which they knew didn’t exist, and contesting an election they knew had lost.”
Trump’s use of donations has given Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hope for his bid to run for the Republican presidential nomination. So far he is far behind Trump in his party, but can now question his priorities. DeSantis campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo put it this way: “Trump has spent more than $60 million on two things: unfairly attacking DeSantis and paying his own legal fees, but not a penny on defeating Biden.”